When 4.3 hit last week, the Looking for Raid feature brought joy to many pugs and now it's also now bringing misery to quite a few hardcore guilds. As it turns out, there was a loot bug with the LFR system and master looting. Instead of reporting them, however, most people chose to exploit it to keep their competitive edges. Members of many top guilds in the world such as Paragon and Method queued up multiple times through a loophole that allowed players to get loot for more than one run in a row. While LFR is supposed to limit players to be eligible for loot only their first run through, regardless of whether they loot or not, this loophole allowed them to farm for early tier 13 bonuses to give them that extra boost in PvE content.

The end result? Many players opened their emails to find themselves with an 8 day ban, just in time for the holidays--and progression farming. Heroics unlock this Tuesday and this was going to be the last epic push for progression hardcore raiders before Mists of Pandaria. Now many of these guilds now have entire rosters banned, along with

Most everyone is running around Stormwind and Orgrimmar in their shiny transmogrified gear, but if you're still stumped on finding an outfit or want an even better one, we've got resources for you--from new features to extensive guides! (If you need a refresher on the specifics and restrictions of Transmogrification, check out the summary and blue post in our 4.3 Patch Day Guide.)

A few weeks ago, we launched our first new Transmogrification feature: Transmogrification sets. You can read all about the feature here, but here's the highlights:We compiled over 1,100 matching itemsets--sets of gear that match, even if Blizzard didn't explicitly group them together. From classic Tier sets to matching gear from Troll heroics, we've got it covered!We labeled some sets as "Recolor" or "Look-alike." A look-alike set has the same pattern and silhouette as class-specific tier, but with either a different color scheme or no class restrictions. We added image browsing in addition to list browsing. You can visually previe

Hotfixes - December 2nd

General

The Looking-For-Dungeon / Looking-For-Raid system should now properly assign classes to the roles that are most needed, as long as those roles are selected. It should no longer confine them to Tank/Healer/DPS priority if other roles are in short supply.

Master looter can no longer assign items in Looking-For-Raid groups to players that are already locked to that boss for the week.

Players should be unable to trade loot they got from Looking-For-Raid encounters to players that are loot locked to that boss.

Classes

Death Knight

Raise Ghoul, Blood Tap, Empower Rune Weapon, and Army of the Dead no longer benefit from the cooldown reduction and the duration increase from the buff Last Defender of Azeroth.

Druid

Druids can no longer cast Barkskin while Hexed. Frenzied Regeneration is now correctly healing for 0.30% health for each point of Rage consumed and matches the amount in the tooltip. Efflorescence should now correctly heal if the S

4.3 launched this week; it's time for another guide to gearing up in a new patch. As usual, this guide does not aim to provide a BiS set of heroic Dragon Soul gear for each class and spec; rather it analyzes the new loot in the context of current options for several different playstyles.

There's two notable new ways to acquire gear: Looking for Raid and expanded Valor Point loot tables.

Looking for Raid: Players can now queue up as a group or by themselves to join a 25-man raid. These raids will not have a lockout and they will drop tier 13, although the stats will be lower than a normal or heroic 25-man. The LFR system operates much like the current dungeon finder and even minimizes the raid itself, splitting it in half, so players can only queue for half of an instance at a time. Players need a minimum ilvl of 372 to be eligible to queue.

Valor Points: While players cannot purchase Tier 13 pieces with Valor Points, the vendors sell ilvl 397 items for practically every slot. Those that aren't covered by points are covered with new BoE craftables. The idea is to have Valor Point gearing become an alternative path to normal-mode gearing.

The biggest news here probably isn't the raid finder or the other tidbits, though those are all helpful--instead it's that they nerfed heroic Ragnaros yet again. There's no more geyser in phase four, which was ultimately the definitive deciding factor into a guild that killed it and a guild that didn't. Geyser was unforgiving, instantly wiping the raid for a player being a mere inch too close to another group; this is a huge nerf, so expect tons of people to go back to finish it (and maybe for loot and mounts!).

Raid Finder Tips

I think rather than making this a complaint thread about what people aren't doing, it may be helpful (as the OP started doing) to share some tips for people who maybe haven't ever had a chance to raid before, including what sorts of gear or items they should expect to bring or even the types of buffs they should be ready to apply etc.

What are the types of things anyone should do to be prepared to Raid?What types of items should they have ready to use in their bags?Should they bring extra to share or is it every man/woman for themselves?What are the best sort of buffs, spells, or even abilities that shou

4.3 just went live, so we've released an extensive guide to help get you started! From innovative dungeons and raids to vanity features like Transmogrification, there's something for everyone's playstyle. After the daily quest grind and reused content in Firelands, 4.3 is a welcome contrast--it's shaping up to truly be unique and epic as the final showdown with Deathwing draws near.

Below, you'll find consolidated versions of all of our 4.3 feature coverage, as well as patch notes, Dungeon Journals, and loot tables. Big thanks to Perculia for covering many of the 4.3 features, Krelumian for his awesome video, and Neutronimity for helping with the coding.

Our Patch 4.3 Overview Video

Patch Notes & Class Changes Overview

4.3 is hitting live today, so it's time to review the patch notes and see what changes are happening. We've got the patch notes collapsed below, as well as Ghostcrawler's explanations for all the class changes and an overview of general additions.

Notable changes not explained by GC: New Legendary item for Rogues: Fangs of the Father.Three new dungeons and a new 10/25 player

Updated November 29, 3:00am PST</font></em><br /><br /><font face="arial" size="2">Additional patch 4.3 content and support information can be found <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3964559/Patch_43_Hour_of_Twilight-11_22_2011#blog" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />Notes for all World of Warcraft patches can be found <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/patch-notes/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br /><br /><em>In the wake of the Cataclysm, Azeroth's champions rose up to thwart the forces of the maddened black Dragon Aspect, Deathwing. Thus far the world's defenders have shattered the power base of the Twilight's Hammer cult and defeated the raging elemental lords Al'Akir and Ragnaros. Yet despite these victories, as long as Deathwing is free to pursue his twisted goals, Azeroth will remain under threat.<br /><br />No one is more aware of this fact than the great Dragon Aspects Alexstrasza, Nozdormu, Ysera, and Kalecgos. Together with the wise shaman Thrall, they have devised a plan to vanquish Deathwing with a weapon of his own design: the infamous Dragon Soul.</em><br />

We will be performing extended maintenance tomorrow, November 29, for the release of the 4.3: Hour of Twilight patch. The realms will be unavailable from 3:00 a.m. PST until approximately 11:00 a.m. PST.

If your launcher states “World of Warcraft is up to date. Downloading data for the next update." please allow the Background Downloader to continue downloading the 4.3 data. You can ensure it continues even when not playing the game by going to the launcher Options, Downloader Preferences, and checking the box labeled “Download after exiting World of Warcraft”. If your launcher only states “World of Warcraft is up to date” then you’ve already obtained the 4.3 pre-download data and will only need a small update before logging in.

Blizzard posted the final raid finder loot rules--a topic I remember many of you were curious about! It looks fairly standard and hopefully will prevent loot being taken unfairly by players who want to grief or gear their offspec over main.

We were also sent a 4.3 video today showcasing Dragon Soul and the three new 5-mans. However, it doesn't have music, so we'll update links if Blizzard's YouTube channel ends up having a different one; we were sent this by Blizzard's PR team and told to post away, but it doesn't seem to be the usual quality for a trailer. Still, it features gorgeous footage and really highlights the instances.

4.3 Raid Finder Loot Rules

As previously announced the Raid Finder will use an altered version of Need Before Greed that provides loot roll bonuses to those that have entered the raid in the role (tank, DPS, healing) that uses those items. Unfortunately the system is currently unable to detect spec, and so this creates some issues for classes that utilize stats that are not "common" to that role.

To help clarify which items you will or will not be able to roll on based on the role you entered the raid i

Arena and Rated Battleground Season 10 is scheduled to end as early as November 15. At that point we will determine who is eligible for the end-of-season rewards, a process that should take approximately one week. It's very important for players who feel that they may be eligible for Arena titles and/or the Vicious Gladiator’s Twilight Drake to refrain from transferring their characters to another realm or faction until after Season 10 ends. During the break between seasons, all Rated Battleground and Arena matches will be unavailable.

At the end of the season, Conquest Points will be converted to Honor Points, possibly exceeding the 4,000 point Honor cap. All Season 10 items will cost Honor Points (equivalent to their previous Conquest Point cost) when the season ends, with the exception of any items with rating requirements attached. These items will no longer be available for purchase.

Please be aware that higher ilvl PvP items will be introduced and available for Honor points with patch 4.3.

The next Arena and Rated Battleground season will begin for level-85 players approximately one week after the end of Season 10 and will coincide with t

Transmogrification is one of the most hyped features in the upcoming 4.3 patch. And since we're the main World of Warcraft database, the pressure has been on us to create some tools for our users to find what they'll be wearing. As such, we've been working on some pretty awesome features as a team in addition to our usual workload since it was first announced this August.

With that in mind, I'm pleased to announce that we're launching phase one of our transmogrification features today. More are coming in the following weeks, but we think you'll like this one a lot so we decided to get it out the door and on Wowhead!

In short, this phase is all about transmogrification sets. A transmogrification set is a set of gear that matches, even if Blizzard doesn't always call it a set--and we've combined over 1,100 of them for this feature in the past few months.

From alternate recolors of tier 10 to awesome low-level BoE sets to matching gear from troll heroics, the content team has added almost every unique set you could possibly want. If you're a warlock who wants to look like a priest or a paladin who feels more like a warrior, we've also got you covered; these are labeled as "look-al

The new Darkmoon Faire hit the PTR this morning and we couldn't wait to finally experience it after seeing all the teaser datamined items over the past few months! It's filled with quirky details, fun games, and lots of vanity items for all tastes. The Faire has been radically revamped, with new achievements, games, rewards, and currencies. We've covered it all in the guide below with numerous screenshots organized by attraction.

Highlights include:

The replica Dungeon Tier items we found several weeks ago made it to the PTR! This means you can transmogrify your armor into Dungeon Set 0 and .5 tier from vanilla (and without class restrictions too!). These sets had been removed in Cataclysm and were currently unobtainable on live.

Numerous new mounts and pets to purchase.

A large-scale PvP arena bloodbath.

New quests associated with mini-games as well as professions: this will grant Darkmoon Prize Ticket which can be used to purchase vanity items and transmogrification gear.